With video: Clinton man sentenced to prison over obsession with teenager

Friday

Jan 17, 2014 at 12:34 PM

By Dennis PelhamDaily Telegram Staff Writer

Obsession with a neighbor's teenage daughter ended Thursday with a 46-year-old Clinton man being led from Lenawee County Circuit Court in handcuffs to begin a 23-month to five-year prison term.

"It saddens my heart to learn my neighbors were living in fear of me," Kent Ellsworth Losee told the court before his sentence was handed down. "I have been earnestly praying that my neighbors will forgive me."

Losee pleaded guilty on Dec. 11 to reduced charges of stalking a minor and unlawfully posting a message over the Internet. He admitted continuing attempts to draw the attention of the girl and posting sometimes-threatening messages on YouTube he intended her to see.

Contact with the girl was prohibited by a personal protection order issued Oct. 4, 2012. It was issued after Losee told her mother he was in love with the 14-year-old and planned for them to be together when she was older.

Losee was arrested in August after a Michigan State Police investigation of the YouTube messages and other alleged stalking behavior.

"He deserves to be punished for what he did. He is a danger," the girl's mother told the court Thursday.

The mother described how she and her family had lived in fear since Losee came to her home and declared he was in love with her daughter.

"He didn't make sense then. He was disconnected. He asked, 'Can the boys still come over?' " she said.

The mother said she had been uncomfortable with Losee when he befriended her three sons, but eventually came to trust him. Things changed after Losee and his wife were invited to a graduation party at their home in August of 2012. She said Losee spent most of the time talking to her 14-year-old daughter and later called to invite her to ride his off-road vehicle. He then showed up at her son's football games with a video camera.

She and her husband were preparing to tell Losee to stop coming to the games, she said, when he walked over on a Saturday morning and made his declaration of being in love.

"The reality unfolded. We had a situation that was very, very strange," the mother said.

The family was afraid to leave the daughter alone at any time, she said. She was escorted on the bus and at school, she said, and her life as a normal teenager was disrupted.

"What's worse, we had to talk to her about things that we never had to talk to her about. About grown men," she said. Loaded guns were kept available in their home for protection, she said.

Losee said he was affected by a mental illness that he has been treating since his release from jail on bond.

Being in jail, he said, "was like the proverbial two-by-four upside my head," Losee told the court.

"I now see I put myself in this position," Losee said. He said his behavior caused his wife and daughter to leave him in April.

"I so desire to be normal again. I have shed many tears over what has happened," Losee said. He asked for probation so he could continue therapy, "and that forgiveness will be forthcoming and the long process of healing can begin."

Losee's behavior was the result of a mental illness, said defense attorney Laurence Margolis.

"He's not the monster people have made him out to be," said Margolis. "If he would have known of that fear we would not be here today. His mental illness prevented him from seeing what the rest of us would have seen."

Losee's realization that his behavior was wrong is a critical point, he said.

"The man, Kent, is being rehabilitated," Margolis said. "He's not a danger to himself or others."

Assistant Lenawee County Prosecutor Angela Borders said Losee was given a stark warning that his behavior was creating fear when a personal protection order was served on him. Losee's wife stayed with him another seven months before his behavior finally caused her to leave, Borders said.

A criminal prosecution is what finally stopped him, she said, not warnings or forgiveness.

Judge Margaret M.S. Noe acknowledged letters from psychiatrists treating Losee, his church pastor and others vouching for his character and progress in therapy.

"You want us to find you a peace- and love-filled person," Noe said. But the YouTube messages contain suggestions of slaughtering young men who came to visit the girl. He also wrote vulgar descriptions of what he wanted to do to the young girl, Noe said.

"You pushed the envelope, when all is said and done," Noe said.

"I hope you do move forward with your life," she said. "I hope that the children of this family will also be able to move forward, to put this behind them.

"I also believe, Mr. Losee, that there is accountability. You acted out after you were put on notice that there were serious issues."

Noe ordered Losee not have a computer or access to the Internet, ordered him to register as a sex offender for a minimum 25 years and that he not have contact with minors. Sixty-five days he served in jail were credited toward his concurrent prison terms of 23 months to five years for stalking a minor and 16 months to two years for unlawful posting a message.

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